L'Affaire du Grand Hôtel (1946)
Directed by André Hugon

Film Review

André Hugon was one of France's pioneering directors of the silent era, and he is in fact credited as the director of the first French language sound film, Trois Masques (1929).  Hugon's later films show little of the artistry and innovation that characterised his early work, and many now appear unbearably plodding and pedestrian.  L'Affaire du Grand Hôtel is one of the very last films that Hugon made before his retirement in the early 1950s, a strange hodgepodge of a film that fails to bring its many disparate elements together into a satisfying whole.  A realistic Marseille in the 1940s with some colourful local characters, an intriguing murder mystery and some amiable musical numbers performed by the popular singer Henri Allibert (not long before his death in 1951)...  It's almost as if someone had attempted to splice together two or three different films, with little regard to narrative or stylistic cohesion.

The most interesting thing the film has to offer is the presence of Noël Roquevert in an unusual dual role.  When we first see Roquevert, heavily disguised as a likeable oldster named Le Philosophe, he is virtually unrecognisable.  Some simple but effective use of superimposition maintains the illusion that Monsieur Léon and Le Philosophe are played by two different actors, until Roquevert dons his make-up and transforms himself from one character into the other in front of our eyes.  Henri Allibert's presence is the film's main selling point, although the lacklustre and untidy script leaves him with very little to do except break into song at random intervals.  Édouard Delmont, a great character associated with many Provençal-situated films (including those of Marcel Pagnol)  is likewise wasted, but he at least gives the film a genuine Marseillaise flavour.  You can almost smell the bouillabaisse - yes, there's something definitely fishy about this film...

Film Synopsis

In the busy French port of Marseille, a young man named Tonin becomes interested in the comings and goings of a suspicious group of men led by the distinguished-looking Monsieur Léon.  The men seem to be innocently employed in raising wrecked ships in the area, but Tonin suspects there may be darker side to their activities.  Is it possible that they are in some way connected with two murders that have taken place at the Grand Hôtel?  The mystery is resolved when Monsieur Léon disguises himself as a harmless old man, Le philosophe...